It seems the mudslinging between Congressman John Tierney and his Republican challenger Richard Tisei might never come to an end. Well, at least until the November elections are over.

Amy Saltzman / asaltzman@wickedlocal.com

It seems the mudslinging between Congressman John Tierney and his Republican challenger Richard Tisei might never come to an end. Well, at least until the November elections are over.

At this point, 6th District voters might be feeling a bit like the end could not come sooner. And as much as voters might be wishing Tierney and Tisei would talk about the real issues — the economy, healthcare, entitlement reform — the candidates, their campaigns and their political parties can’t seem to stop talking about family matters, both their own but, perhaps more frequently, their opponent’s.

Most recently, the focus has been on two allegations, one pointing in each direction. First is a recent suggestion made by three ethics groups to give a closer look into Tierney’s financial disclosure forms, to see if what the Tierneys have described as a monetary gift given to Patrice Tierney for serving as bookkeeper for her brothers’ illegal gambling business was really more of a salary for her work. If so, the congressman would have needed to disclose those earnings.

The second, that Tisei played a role in his parents’ business, in which he is being accused by Tierney’s campaign of extracting “$30,000 out of the pockets of people that his family illegally wronged.”

Both candidates claim they have done nothing wrong, while seeking to exploit the other’s family issues to weaken their rival in the eyes of the public.

Tierney’s camp argues the money his wife received during her involvement with her brothers’ gambling business — reported to be $223,000, a figure Tierney said is exaggerated — was a gift. Under House rules, members do not need to report gifts from relatives.

As reported by several media outlets, three ethics groups — Sunlight Foundation, Common Cause and Center for Responsive Politics — would like the Ethics Commission to take a closer look.

“From the information in the records, it’s clear this is something that should be looked at,” said Bill Allison, editorial director for Sunlight Foundation. “This was a significant source of income for her. …This doesn’t sound like a gift; it sounds like income. It was derived directly form a business. Clearly, it bears scrutiny. And this is something that the Ethics Commission looks into.”

Tisei agrees and has suggested a formal Ethics Commission investigation into Tierney’s financial disclosure filings. He claims Patrice Tierney was really receiving payment for her services, and, as a member of Congress, John Tierney is responsible for reporting it.

“[Tierney] hasn’t amended his ethics form at all for the last two years,” said Tisei. “During the trial over the brother, the government had all the checks she made out every month. They had all the information, and it’s all documented. ...You don’t give a gift every single month like a paycheck. She was writing herself $20,000 checks. She controlled the account. When you’re getting paid every single month, for years, that’s not a gift.”

But Tierney’s spokespeople argue the money was, in fact, a gift.

“Congressman Tierney has always followed financial disclosure rules, has consulted with the Ethics Committee, most recently in 2010, and has not been asked to amend his filing,” Tierney spokesperson Kathryn Prael said.

Grant Herring, communications director for the Tierney campaign, said this is all part of Tisei’s agenda to take the focus away from the real issues of this campaign.

“The reality is that Tisei is so desperate to talk about anything other than the issues because he does not want voters to know that he supports the extreme agenda of the right-wing Republicans in Washington,” said Herring. “It’s the height of hypocrisy for him to continually make these baseless attacks. He’s exaggerated the facts on multiple occasions. ... He said himself that elected officials should be held to a higher standard. He’s made this whole campaign about Tierney’s family, knowing the whole time that (Tisei's) family has many legal troubles of their own.”

Legal woes of Tisei’s parents

The troubles to which Herring refers are the lawsuits brought against Tisei’s parents, Beverly and Ralph, while they ran their businesses in the ’80s and ’90s, most of which related to real estate.
In response to one allegation against their company, The Building Inspector of America Inc., president Ralph Tisei agreed to pay a civil penalty of $20,000 for failing to disclose to potential purchasers the litigation and bankruptcy history of the company and two of its officers, according to a press release on the Federal Trade Commission’s website. The 1993 complaint charged that the defendants, who included Beverly and Ralph Tisei, made unsubstantiated claims to potential purchasers about the earnings they could expect, among other violations of the FTC’s Franchise Rule, said the release.

“There’s clearly a web of fraud and deception from the Tisei family business,” said Herring. “There needs to be a lot of questions answered about the financial links of his family’s fraudulent businesses and how it relates to Tisei.”

One link the Tierney campaign and the Massachusetts Democratic Party are trying to highlight is that the candidate profited from one deal in particular; the disputed suggestion is that, in the process, he allowed himself to be party to shielding some of his parents’ assets from their creditors.

The Party created a website, tiseifacts.com, on which it is claimed “Tisei was living in the house at the center of one such lawsuit and tried to extract value from it by forcing its sale to his young legislative aide.”

The sale to Brian Cresta, now Tisei’s campaign treasurer, fell through based on liens against the house that had been taken out on Tisei’s parents’ portion by their creditors.

“Basically I owned a house with my parents. They owned half the house; I owned half the house,” said Tisei. “We decided to sell the house after 10 years of owning and learned that there was a lien on my parents’ half. The lien was because they owned a home inspection company, and one inspector did a home inspection and there ended up being termites outside the house. So [the homeowners] won a judgment against my parents, and that was what the lien was.”

Tisei claims there was nothing untoward about the proposed transaction and that Cresta was simply looking to purchase a home at the same time Tisei and his parents were trying to sell theirs.
Tisei, who owns his own real estate company, said he ended up selling Cresta — his legislative aide at the time — a different home a month later.

“He was just actively looking for property at that point,” said Tisei.

Tisei said his parents appealed the court judgment against them and won, which removed the lien from the house, allowing it to be sold two years later. Tisei said he received $25,000 for the sale — less than the $30,000 that has been quoted — as did his parents.

To Tierney’s campaign spokesman Herring, that money, be it $25,000 or $30,000, was “extracted… out of the pockets of people that [Tisei’s] family illegally wronged.”

But Tisei pointed out that, because the liens had been removed from the house prior to the sale — a necessity in any real-estate transaction — the suggestion he ultimately deprived anyone of anything is off base.

At the time of the completed sale, the Federal Trade Commission did have pending a judgment against Tisei’s parents after winning a suit against them for violations of franchising regulations. Tisei said the timing of the sale was coincidental, noting the property had been on the market for quite some time. Besides, he said, the judgment — of some $7,000 — was ultimately satisfied from his parents’ share of the sale proceeds. He added that his parents would later win a malpractice suit against the attorney whose work led them to run afoul of the FTC.

Tisei noted that — until now, at least — he had never been accused of doing anything wrong with respect to his parents’ business dealings and the real estate they co-owned, suggesting that if there were something to the charges Tierney’s camp is now levying, it would have come out when he was running for lieutenant governor alongside Charlie Baker.

“There was nothing improper about it, nothing illegal about it,” he said. “I’ve never been charged with doing anything illegal in regards to it. It’s the most ridiculous thing. … It’s my parents’ business, not mine. I’m not associated in any way.”

He continued, “Every business owner has issues that come up. I ran for lieutenant governor; everybody looked me over, and nothing came up in my background at all. We would have heard about it two years ago. And this was all stuff from 20 years ago.”

He noted, “My parents were never charged with a crime; that was a civil lawsuit. There’s a difference. Tierney’s wife was charged, convicted and sent to jail for a serious crime.”

Same accusation?

Each candidate and their surrogates believe the other is engaging in the worst kind of politics —stooping low by attacking and involving the other’s family.

“Tisei has based his entire campaign on attacking Tierney’s family, and he should be ashamed of himself,” Herring said.

When asked why the campaign would turn around and do the same thing, Herring responded that from the very beginning Tierney has wanted to talk about the issues in this campaign — what matters to the middle-class families.

“Tisei is doing everything he can to avoid talking about how he supports the extreme Republican agenda, which includes raising taxes on middle-class families, ending Medicare for seniors and repealing healthcare reform,” said Herring.

But Tisei just thinks this is the Tierney campaign’s way of trying to deflect the negative press the congressman has received.

“This is part of an orchestrated smoke screen,” Tisei said. “Tierney is sinking and is pretty desperate. He wants to try to disperse things on my character to cover up what is obviously a big character flaw that he has. I’ll debate anyone, anytime, anywhere about personal ethics, especially John Tierney.”

He added, “I feel bad that my father’s name is being dragged through the mud. Shame on [Tierney]. My dad died 12 years ago and can’t defend himself. It’s reprehensible.”